May 2013

As we had organised a 12 noon checkout we made a slow start to the day, and David went for papers at about 9:00 am. We had a leisurely breakfast and started the process of packing up the Ute, before checking out of the caravan park at about 11.45 am. As we left the park we gave Phil at Trailblazers a call to check progress on our van - the message was to have a leisurely lunch and call in about 3:00 pm. We found the Frankston Life Saving Club and had a very nice lunch at Waves on the Beach Restaurant. Di had stuffed chicken breast with potatoes and broccolini, while David had a porterhouse steak with mash and steamed vegetables. A Hunter Valley Arrowfield Shiraz helped it all go down.

Di on the beach at Frankston

Waves on the Beach at Frankston

We arrived at Trailblazers to find that all the work had been completed and our van was ready to go. On the forecourt we also noticed Phil's new toy - a Mitsubishi 4WD Truck Camper. The camper comprises a slide-on pop-top camper and is a new addition to the Trailblazer range.

Our van in the workshop at Trailblazers

Phil's new toy - a 4X4 truck camper

When the front of the van was removed to repair the hole that David had put in the nose cone of the van, Phil and the boys found the cause of the movement we had noticed for the last few years. One of the structural timbers in the front of the van had broken at a point where a knot in the timber had weakened the structure. Although our van was over 4 years old, Phil decided that it was a construction fault and completed the repair at no charge to us - Thank you Phil!!! - great after-sales service at Trailblazers. Our van now has a nice shiny new nose cone. They had also installed another power point, renewed the roof seals, and checked the brakes and repacked the wheel bearings.

Old nose cone

Nice new nose cone

We hitched up and were on our way at about 2:45 pm heading for the M3 Eastern Freeway. We exited the freeway onto Bulleen Road and zig-zagged our way to Greensborough where we joined the M80 Metropolitan Ring Road which took us to the M31 Hume Freeway. We joined the Hume Freeway at about 4:00 pm and continued north to Seymour where we turned off onto the M39 Goulbourn Freeway. We eventually arrived at the Shepparton Park Lane Big4 Holiday Park at about 5:45 pm just on dusk.

We have an en-suite site and did a full set up in the dark as we are here for three nights. We are getting pretty good at this set-up process and could probably do it with our eyes closed. We need a day to get properly organised now that we have our van back, before we head into outback NSW, and a day to have a look around Shepparton. The Shepparton/Mooroopna area on the Goulbourn River has a population of about 40,000 people - slightly bigger than Devonport in Tasmania.

The weather forecast for today is a maximum of 15 degrees and cloudy with showers. As it was not a day for sightseeing we went shopping for a few odds and ends. We have been having trouble buying small sealing rings for barbeque gas bottle connectors - we have tried Bunnings and Rays Outdoors to no avail. While they both sell barbeques, hoses, regulators and gas bottles they do not sell replacement sealing rings, which is rather strange given that the rubber sealing rings only last a year or so. We eventually tracked some down at Barbeques Galore.

By then it was raining so we decided to head for the Bayside Shopping Centre for the rest of our shopping. As we have a loaded roof rack at the moment we had to find parking in the open as we are too high to get into multi-storey car parks. While David was getting a ticket from the Pay and Display machine the heavens opened - you guessed it, he hadn't bothered with the umbrella and got saturated. With the umbrellas we made a quick dash for cover in the Centre.

We managed to get a new TV signal strength meter at Dick Smiths - the previous one had a flat 9 v battery, but being a sealed unit you are unable to fit a new one. We bought a few items of clothing at Target and Myers before having lunch at a small café in the Centre. On the way back to the car we made a quick stop at Safeway (Victoria's Woolies) for some TV Dinners for tonight.

Back at the Caravan Park we gave Trailblazers a call for a progress report on repairs to the caravan - they are hoping to be finished tomorrow morning and we should be able to pick it up after lunch. David went to the caravan park office and organised a late 12 noon checkout for tomorrow. If its not too late when we hit the road - we plan to head for Shepparton for a couple of nights, a distance of about 215 kms including some of Melbourne's ring roads.

We started the day with brunch again in Chapel Street settled on the Yellow Bird Café Restaurant. We had no sooner sat down at a table on the footpath when along came Daryl, Janine and Will who were also looking for brunch, so they joined us. They were cruising around Melbourne taking in the sights before returning to Warrnambool. Something of a coincidence that we would meet up again in a City of over 4 million people. After breakfast Daryl, Janine and Will headed off to the Victoria Market, while we returned to Kirrily's apartment to pack up and hit the road to Frankston where we will spend a couple of nights while we wait for the completion of repairs to our van.

Being Saturday we made a slow start to the day and then walked up to Chapel for papers and brunch at Dinos Café Bar. After lunch we did a bit of shopping in Chapel Street before returning to Kirrily's apartment to prepare for another pilgrimage to the MCG. We met up with Daryl (Yablett), Janine and Will at 5:15 pm at the Café Andiamo in Degraves Street in the City for a meal before going to the MCG to see Geelong play the Magpies. The meals were excellent and at about 6:30 pm we decided that it was time to head for the MCG.

Rather than walk to the ground we took a carriage ride behind two white horses from Swanson Street right to the entrance to the MCG. The horses are very docile and are not phased by the traffic or the trams. When we arrived at the ground we made a stop at the merchandise shop for stop Cats items for Bronte (a Geelong Beanie) and Josh (a Cats footy jumper). After our shopping we found our seats on the lower level about three quarters of the way back from the ground - Olympic stand level 1 looking towards the City end.

Ready for our coach ride to the MCG

Kirrily and Di with Janine up front with the driver

Daryl and Will ( Will giving cheek to some Magpie supporters)

Janine giving the horses a pat

Suffice to say that it was a fairly scrappy game, with the Cats only putting in one good quarter, and the Magpies winning by 6 points. Given the late withdrawal of Stevie J with a calf injury, the suspension of James Kelly, and the continuing absence of Paul Chapman, Geelong were a bit short in the senior leadership department. Jimmy Bartel made a terrible start with 4 clangers in the first 10 minutes including a gift goal to the Magpies. After the game we joined the throngs to walk back into the City where we found a cab home.

The view of the MCG from our seats

Cats are number one

Geelong players before the game

Di with Kirrily, Janine and Will

Di still posing for the camera

David enjoying Geelong's three quarter time lead

Glad we don't have to pay the electricity bill

This morning we had to hang about at Kirrily's apartment waiting for her cleaners to arrive so that we could give them some new keys. While we were waiting we had an early lunch and after they arrived we went to East Malvern to pick up some vinyl lettering we had ordered a few days ago to go on the back of the van. At a nearby bakery we bought some sweet pastries, and a bottle of wine at a local wine merchant to take when we visited David's sister Louise who lives in Northcote.

The traffic in Melbourne was a total shambles today. This morning a B-Double had jack-knifed on the Bolte Bridge and ended up with a trailer hanging over the edge of the bridge. The driver fell about 30 feet to the ground and was badly injured. It took all day to remove the truck and traffic on the western approaches to Melbourne was seriously disrupted. To make matters worse a high-top truck got itself wedged in the Burnley Tunnel during the morning and seriously disrupted traffic on the eastern approaches to Melbourne.

We were on the Monash Freeway, but bailed out early along with everyone else, and what should have been a 30 minute trip to Northcote ended up taking almost an hour. We got to explore Bridge Road and Punt Road in Richmond and had plenty of time to look about. When we arrived at Louise's place she already had a visitor - Jacque providing a beauty treatment, and soon after we arrived Courtney from Osborn Sloan and Associates arrived to do some banking for Louise to ensure that she had plenty of money for the weekend.

We spent an hour or so with Louise catching up on her news - her youngest daughter Zoe is expecting to give birth on 12 June. From the look of the photos that Louise had Zoe might well be early. Eventually Louise managed to smoke us out and we headed back to Windsor before the traffic got too bad.

No Photos.